Hudson County assistant prosecutors are among the lowest paid in the state, but talks are under way that could give them a boost in pay and pension contributions.

Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office officials “have appeared before the freeholder board on three or four occasions saying they regularly lose many of their attorneys and investigators to other counties because of our pay scale,” Freeholder Bill O’Dea said Friday. “And often, someone works there three or four years and establishes himself in a position to go to a less busy county and get a better salary.”

Attorneys hired as assistant prosecutors in Hudson County start at $50,000 a year, making them the 19th lowest paid prosecutors among the state’s 21 counties, O’Dea said.

The freeholders are considering giving all 63 assistant prosecutors a 2 percent salary hike retroactive to Jan. 1, O'Dea and county Business Administrator Abe Anton said.

And these raises would amount to more than they would right now because the freeholders plan to include retention pay and on-call pay the assistant prosecutors currently receive into the employees' base salaries. The higher base salaries would also result in bigger pension contributions for the assistant prosecutors, the officials said.

O'Dea said other non-union county employees are receiving raises between 1 and 2 percent this year.

When it's all done, the assistant prosecutors in Hudson will be the 17th lowest paid in all the state, O'Dea said.

The Prosecutor's Office has to put together a formal proposal that would have to be ratified at a freeholders' meeting after a public meeting, Anton said.

“The county passed the budget and the Prosecutor’s Office submitted (proposed) raises that did not exceed appropriations,” Acting Hudson County Prosecutor Gaetano Gregory said Friday in a statement. “At this point, the freeholders must approve the raises for assistant prosecutors.”